Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨💻? Find out how to check here.
Forum Discussion
In dropbox.com/Camera Uploads, file names with colons are not synched to Windows
At Dropbox.com in my Camera Uploads folder I have over 900 jpg files which contain a colon (i.e. : ) in their file names. For example 20161202-15:51 - 15.51.19.jpg
It seems these files will not sy...
Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorDid you use the camera upload feature, or did you upload images manually to the Dropbox site around the time of the change?
Regarding renaming the files, you'll need to find a program or service to rename them in bulk from your Mac device.
I don't know how to upload photos manually. I don't have a Mac. I have an iPhone 12 and Windows laptop. Photos I take on my phone upload automatically to Dropbox when the iphone Dropbox app is open. Dropbox evidently names and/or renames them when uploading. I have no idea how an iPhone names photo files. The only file name I see is what ends up in Dropbox.
I may have found a way to rename the files.
The following is done while logged in at dropbox.com
1. Create a subfolder under Camera Uploads named temp
2. In subfolder temp, create a naming convention from the "Organize" drop down.
3. copy the files that need renaming from Camera Uploads to temp.
I tested with a single file, and it worked. However, after my successful test with a single file, Dropbox seemed to forget the naming convention I had created for the temp folder. Very strange. However #2, I copied another file and it did get renamed just like the first file. Very strange #2.
I am amazed that a Google search or a Dropbox forum search found nothing helpful when I looked for colon-related problems with file names in Camera Uploads. I can't believe I'm the only person to fight this problem.
This is an update to my method. For the copy step, don't use the ... button to the right of the file list. Use the ... button above the file list.
- Jay
Rich is correct, since the camera upload feature wouldn't keep any colons in the filenames, and since only Apple devices can read them, most likely the images were imported manually into Dropbox from a Mac or iPhone.
The naming convention would be a workaround, however, you might lose the similar naming format for the other images that are named correctly.
- Rich
Super User II
XLRotor wrote:
Dropbox evidently names and/or renames them when uploading.
Dropbox does rename photos and videos when using the Camera Uploads process, but it doesn't use colons. The format used by Camera Uploads is YYYY-MM-DD hh.mm.ss.jpg. If your files have colons in the name, something else is causing it.
Files uploaded after about August 2022 don't have colons. Before that, they have colons. FWIW - None of my file names have the seconds in the name, and seconds are not available in any of the options in the Organize/Set naming convention dialog. One evidently cannot enter a custom name format - only the items in the list can be selected.
I reckon sometime in 2022 one of the coders at Dropbox realized that colons were a bad idea. As of today one can't get a colon even if you wanted to.
